By gregelizabeth

Greg Crowther is a postdoctoral researcher and instructor at the University of Washington in Seattle. His favorite cereal is Corn Chex.

Liz Stahl is an attorney at the Seattle Immigration & Family Law Group. She suffers from chronic inhalation of secondhand science, being the daughter of one biologist and and the wife of another.

WHAT’S THE SCOOP? A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF KELLOGG’S RAISIN BRAN

Advertisements for Kellogg’s Raisin Bran indicate that there are two scoops of raisins in every box, and two plastic scoops, along with the words “Two scoops!”, appear prominently on the front of the box. Unfortunately, a scoop is a nonstandard unit of volume, so the prevalence of raisins in the cereal remains uncertain. Moreover, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran comes in 15-, 20-, and 25.5-ounce boxes, all of which bear the “Two scoops!” claim. This observation suggests two alternative hypotheses: (A) Scoop size is independent of box size. In other words, the same scoops are used to add raisins to each box,…